


Weary

by FracturedClock



Category: Motherland: Fort Salem (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:34:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24161416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FracturedClock/pseuds/FracturedClock
Summary: When I heal someone,I don’t just take on the physical.I take on their hope and dreamsand pain and suffering.It was all so heavy,until you came along.
Relationships: Raelle Collar/Scylla Ramshorn
Comments: 5
Kudos: 83





	Weary

**Author's Note:**

> This came out of a discussion in the discord chat Motherland's Coven. So I have all you awesome peoples to thank for returning my writing mojo. Head's up it's a bit rough 'cause I haven't written in years and I was too excited to edit it any further.

When I heal someone,  
I don’t just take on the physical.  
I take on their hope and dreams  
and pain and suffering.  
It was all so heavy,  
until you came along.

**The first time she healed someone she did it without meaning to.**  
She was five years old and had been allowed to take some of the younger kids in The Cession out to play. One of the younger boys wandered off to play on a fallen tree. A sharp yelp alerted Raelle to her missing charge. The boy had fallen off and scraped his knee. She panicked for a moment, the younger children had been entrusted to her after all, but then she pulled herself together. As she knelt to comfort him, she placed her hand on his leg and the other wrapped the small child in a hug. Slowly the sniffling stopped, and the boy pulled away to look at his knee with amazement. “It’s gone!”

It was only later on her walk home that Raelle realised her knee hurt. Her mother Willa spent her whole afternoon fussing over Raelle, clucking like a proud mother hen.

**The second time she did it without thinking.**  
At school a kid fell off the monkey bars clutching her arm. Without thinking she copied her mother. Placed her hands on the wailing girl and started the words.

“Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

The teacher nearby wrenched Raelle away and marched her to the principal’s office. Raelle, now cradling a broken arm waited outside the office for what felt like hours for her father. Finally, he came to take her home.

Later that night she crept out of her room, arm in a sling around her neck, and snuck to the end of the hallway where she could her father in a one-sided conversation with her deployed mother. “You need to teach her to control herself, she ended up in the office for healing a broken arm” …. “No, I’m no good at explaining these things. They made her sit there with a broken arm while the other kid was sent to hospital.” … “Yeah, I know. I just worry for her. I worry she’ll take on too much one day and it will kill her. I’ve seen you each time you come home. And so has she.” … “I love you.” At that point Raelle backed away from the door and retreated to her room confused about what she heard.

**All the times in between**  
Over the years when her mother was home, Raelle learnt more about healing. She learnt how and when to heal but also importantly when to abstain and moderate. She began to see the effect healing had on her mother like she had heard her father mention that night. The tiredness that was always present when she came home, along with the injuries. The slump to her posture when she thought Raelle wasn’t looking and above all the nights when she heard her mother and father speaking in another room but always falling silent the minute Raelle appeared.

It was because of this that Raelle decided to take on her mother’s role in the community of healing the civilians when her mother wasn’t home. When her father came home exhausted from his menial hard labour, she did what she could to ease his burden.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

After the first time though she had to do it while he was asleep in his armchair otherwise, he wouldn’t let her. Stating that all he needed was a good night’s rest.  
She began to understand the tole her mother talked about. She found herself forever tired covered in cuts and bruises and burns. Raelle continued this during each deployment waiting for her mother to come home, until one day she didn’t.

**The time she failed**  
Raelle and her father received word from Willa’s unit that there had been massive fire fight in Liberia and that her mother had perished. Raelle went catatonic for days whilst her father had to push through and keep on working and taking care of his remaining family. The time for the funeral came and family friend, Maggie, got Raelle ready and out of the house. The funeral was a sombre occasion filled with unknown witches who despised Raelle’s father for being a civilian. Finally, when they all left, and it was just Raelle and her father standing at the coffin waiting for it to be lowered she couldn’t take it any longer. The grieving girl threw open the lid, placed her hands on her mother’s battered body and began to chant.

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us.”

Her father, slow to pull out of his stupor responded as the girl collapsed, a horrific cut making its way across the left side of her face , pulled from her mother’s body. He yanked her away, cradling her in his arms blood pouring from her face.

It took six months to heal from. The usual magic not speeding up the healing time. During this time Raelle came back to herself, but she was no longer the happy carefree girl her father remembered.

**The last time she healed as a civilian**  
In time she went back to helping the civilians but no longer for free. Instead she charged so as to be able to help her father with the rent and bills. The last person she healed before she left was Maggie. The kindly older woman who always made an effort to look out for Raelle after her mother passed. Knowing that the girl was leaving she had even brought a dish of food that she probably couldn’t spare. Rather than just relieving the burn as she had been doing, Raelle healed the whole thing.

“Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh, receiveth and he that seeketh, findeth and to him who knocks it shall be open. For thine is the kingdom the power and the glory for ever and ever.”

**After Scylla**  
After Scylla healing was easy. Having someone always there for you to ease the burden was something her Mama never talked about. Maybe it was different between a witch and a civilian. Scylla always knew the right thing to say or not say depending on the way Raelle walked through that dorm room door.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; through the rivers, they shall not flood you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned.

The two girls clicked in such a way that neither had ever dared to dream of. Pain relieved from others was then taken away in turn by a loving kiss or gentle touch. The unwelcome emotions that came with healing banished with a word. The suffering that the fixer took on as a part of healing was shared and halves. Each had found their match. Cool heads to douse fiery tempers. The perfect balance of light and darkness.

It was all so heavy until you came along.


End file.
